Hitting coach Brunansky is first hired for Molitor's staff

Tom Brunansky, who served as the Twins' hitting coach under Ron Gardenhire for the past two seasons, will hold the same position on Paul Molitor's staff next year, the team announced Thursday.

Under Brunansky's direction, the Twins ranked fifth in the AL in runs scored and in OPS last season, scoring 101 more runs than they did in 2013, when they ranked 14th.

Like Molitor, who was hired as the Twins' new manager on Monday, Brunansky is a former Minnesota player, though they were never teammates. Brunansky served as hitting coach for the Twins' Gulf Coast League team in 2010, and spent two seasons in the same position at Class AAA Rochester before being promoted by Gardenhire to the Twins in 2013.

Brunansky is the first coach to be named to Molitor's staff. The rest of Gardenhire's staff remains in limbo as the new manager considers new hires.

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Phil Miller covered three seasons of Twins baseball, but that was at a different ballpark for a different newspaper. Now Miller returns to the baseball beat after joining the Star Tribune as the Gopher football writer in 2010, and he won't miss the dingy dome for a minute. In addition to the Twins and Gophers, Miller covered the Utah Jazz and the NBA for six years at The Salt Lake Tribune.